Gordon Brown calls for more positive Remain campaign

Gordon Brown has called on the ‘Remain’ campaign to make a more “positive, principled and patriotic” case for membership of the European Union as he made his first major entry into the EU referendum debate.

In apparent criticism on the Downing Street-led “remain” campaign, the former Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor warned on Thursday that Labour and Liberal voters – who polls suggest will be crucial to a “remain” victory - risked being turned off by the negative campaign.

“In this debate, those of us who are supporting remaining in Europe have first of all got to be positive we have got to put forward the positive arguments”

Gordon Brown

“In this debate, those of us who are supporting remaining in Europe have first of all got to be positive,” he told a meeting of 100 leading economists held by the Centre for European Reform, a pro-EU think-tank, “we have got to put forward the positive arguments,” he said.

Mr Brown was speaking hours before Barack Obama, the US president, touched down at Standsted Airport last night at the start of a four-day visit during which he will dispense what officials promise will be “very candid” advice to the British people to vote to remain in Europe.

Gordon Brown

It was a rather less impassioned performance than the barnstorming speech Mr Brown famously gave at the last “Better Together” rally during the 2014 Scottish referendum when he urged Unionists to “stand up and be counted” and reject the Scottish Nationalists’ separatist arguments.

But Mr Brown was quietly insistent that there was a case to be made that on a host of issues – taxation, environment, social security, illegal immigration, energy and maintain anti-terror defences – British voters would be better off remaining in the EU.

Citing the popular outcry over the Panama Papers leak, he said that global efforts to curb tax havens had only been possible because of the “clout of Europe”.

He also warned that a campaign focussed narrowly on jobs and investment would fail to address the wider legitimate concerns that British voters had about globalisation and the democratic deficit with Brussels.

“People’s concerns are not just economic and financial but they relate to security and how safe they feel, and they relate to what kind of country we are becoming, our cultures, our traditions and what is happening on our borders”

Gordon Brown

“People’s concerns are not just economic and financial but they relate to security and how safe they feel, and they relate to what kind of country we are becoming, our cultures, our traditions and what is happening on our borders,” he said.

Asked if he felt the ‘remain’ campaign was incompetent and had failed to make the case in a properly positive way, Mr Brown demurred.

“No,” he said, “When I say positive, what I mean is that its important to tell people what the risks are, but also, looking forward, what the prospective gains are.”